Page 79

The world around me was calm as my consciousness came back to me.

My body was warm and comfortable, a feeling that automatically told me that I was in Nico's bed.

Memories of what had happened began to flash in my mind, forcing me to open my eyes, my heart skipping a beat at the thought that I had just passed out from the pain.

What I saw, however, denied that thought.

I was lying facing the bathroom, seeing Nico sitting in his desk chair.

He was facing me, but he wasn't looking at me.

Instead, he was hunched over, elbows set on his knees and his palms pressed against his forehead. His hair fell loosely between his fingers

His shoulders rose and fell slowly, but not evenly.

How long was I out?

I tried to move but stopped almost immediately once I felt some resistance against pretty much my entire torso.

Looking down at myself, I first noticed that the shirt I was previously wearing had been replaced with a looser and softer one. Luckily the collar of the shirt was large enough and loose enough for me to see under it, noticing the bandages wrapped around my body from a little past the bottom of my ribs all the way to my shoulders, coming over them kind of like a tank top.

My brain didn't even want to stress on focusing what Nico might have seen while he did this.

I just felt so unbelievably grateful and relieved that my back didn't feel nearly as bad as it did.

Somehow it only felt sore and achy where the lashes were.

Nico must have numbed it or something because there's no way it felt like this naturally.

Even regardless of that I still needed to be careful. Just because I couldn't feel it as much as I should, doesn't mean that the wounds were healed.

So, with that in mind, I slowly began pushing the upper half of my body up, allowing the blanket to fall off of my shoulders.

I let out a small sigh at my body's reaction to this.

My entire body felt stiff and tired. My muscles even felt sore.

I guess after all everything my body was put through, this was to be expected.

I immediately glanced up towards Nico after my sigh, watching his head shoot up at the sound.

His eyes widened the moment he saw me.

He almost instantly stood up, hastily taking a couple quick eager steps towards me before he appeared to have changed his mind on something and slowed himself down to a stop a couple feet away from me.

That guilty look reappeared on his features.

He opened his mouth, immediately closed it, and then began nervously chewing on his bottom lip, all while his eyes searched the floor.

I could tell that he was blaming himself for this whole thing.

I wanted to say something but I didn't even know what to say. So many different things have happened since we've actually normally spoken to each other that I didn't even know what to bring up first.

Luckily Nico spared me the panic of trying to decide how to break this awkward atmosphere by doing it himself.

"So um," he began clearing his throat before continuing, "How do you feel?" He asked, only looking at me towards the end of the sentence.

Ok so he may have finally said something but that definitely didn't shift the awkward atmosphere as much as I would have hoped.

"Good," I replied, hoping to maybe get past the awkward, "Surprisingly good."

"Does it hurt anywhere?" He asked exactly after I had finished, his voice sounding like he was worried I was going to say yes.

I guess he was worried about the possibility that he didn't do as good of a job as he might have hoped.

I shook my head, "No. Its just aches a bit. What did you do?"

A small look of discomfort tugged at his features as he thought back.

"A lot actually," he started, glancing at the small bit of bandaging visible from the result of the collar of my shirt falling from my shoulder, "It took a while for me to actually clean out the wounds, stop the bleeding, and stitch up the few spots that needed it. I guess the fact that that whip was new and had never been used didn't really help the situation"

My eyes widened, quickly glancing at the corner of the room to see that the whip was nowhere to be seen.

Nico continued.

"Then I applied that cream that'll help it heal faster and hopefully weaken the nerves to keep it numb. Then I uh..," he rubbed the back of his head, his voice growing quieter," I injected a bit of Lidocaine to make sure that you didn't feel anything when you woke up."

I just blinked at him for a moment, not believing how serious he was about that promise he made me before I blacked out.

"Thank you, Nico," I said, knowing those words couldn't convey how grateful I really was.

He shook his head, "No need to thank me. It was the least I could do after I-" He stopped right at his voice began to tremble.

My heart ached as I concluded how that sentence was going to end.

"Nico..." I began, trying to make my voice sound as forgiving and comforting as possible.

"I'm sorry," he confessed quietly, the guilt practically dripping from his voice.

"This wasn't your fault," I tried to console him," There's no way you could have known that that was going to happen. If anything, It's my fault for not checking who was at the door before I opened it."

He shook his head again, not taking a single ounce of my comfort into mind, "No, I should have known. Hell, I did know. Only mere minutes after Layla left I felt like something was wrong. I felt like I needed to run upstairs to check on you, but I brushed it off thinking that it was just my mind making up excuses to go and see you liked I longed to do," His eyes locked with mine for a long second before he reluctantly tore them away, "When I finally gave in and came up here... I was too late."

I sat in silence as I thought over what he had said.

Although I still didn't believe that this was his fault, It was more than obvious that he had been thinking about this ever since it happened.

"I'm not blaming you for this," I stated, causing him to look at me in surprise, "And I can't force you to think the same way but please just forget about this. I don't want this to dwell in your head as a mistake. This wasn't your fault, this was an accident that you handled fantastically and I can't thank you enough for that."

Though I felt like there were going to be some consequences for the way he handled Layle that he'd have to deal with later.

That is if Layla even brings it up, but then again why wouldn't she?

Nico took a single hesitant step towards me.

"Khloe I..." He sounded like he wasn't going to accept what I had said, so I quickly cut him off.

"Please Nico? I want to forget about this as quickly as I can, and move on so we can get to the next topic."

Nico's brows furrowed, his head tilting ever so slightly.

"Next topic?" He questioned.

My lips pressed together tightly as I realized that I did indeed say those exact words.

I had intended to just imply that but I guess my brain had a different plan.

My tongue flicked over my bottom lip, my mouth feeling suddenly dry.

This was the talk I had wanted right?

Except now that the moment was here, I was nervous.

I cleared my throat lightly, taking in a deep breath before I spoke.

"You kissed me."